Although your gutter system provides the essential functions of properly diverting rainwater away from the roof and protecting your home’s exterior walls and foundation, it’s also wise to recognize that the look, color, and material of your gutters can add to your home’s curb appeal.
Just like the appearance of your shutters, trim, and front door, your gutters can provide an additional accent color within your overall exterior palette. In fact, we love the use of darker gutter colors to hide dirt and debris better than lighter colors! This can help your home appear fresher for longer in between routine cleaning and maintenance.
If you are considering painting your gutters to work within a preferred color scheme, Drain Right Guttering offers a wide-ranging pre-painted Gutter Color Selection available in our seamless aluminum guttering. You can select from twenty-five ready-to-use shades, and we can also explore custom or specialty colors together. With a baked-on color enamel finish direct from the factory, this is a more durable finish than an outdoor paint brand can provide.
For ambitious DIY homeowners who are determined to paint their gutters by hand, it’s important to weigh the advantages and disadvantages beforehand to ensure that it’s the best action to take. Let’s take a moment to explore the pros and cons of painting your gutters!
Advantages of Painting Your Gutters:
- Customized Curb Appeal – If you aim to achieve a custom appearance for your home, a fresh coat of paint can vastly enhance curb appeal! Painting is a fantastic way to personalize your home if you inherited a common color scheme or to refresh a longstanding color scheme and give the home new life. Even though they may not take up much visual space, freshly painted gutters are another architectural feature that can help uplift the look of your property.
- Added Weather Protection – Homeowners in the Southeastern states such as Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia must consider the high sunlight, rain, and other weather conditions that this region experiences all year long. Paint can actually serve as a protective barrier for your gutters against the elements and help prevent rusting and corrosion. Since homeowners are highly likely to experience water damage at some point in their lives, and water damage affects around 14,000 people in the United States every single day (according to the Insurance Information Institute), a protective layer of paint can potentially help extend the life of your gutters!
- Easier Cleaning & Maintenance – Since rainwater and debris are less likely to stick to smooth surfaces, painted gutters can potentially be easy to keep clean. As gutter maintenance experts in the Southeast, we know how beneficial this can be in states that have high humidity levels. With gutters that are easier to clean and maintain, you are less likely to experience the growth of mold or mildew, and hopefully prevent their presence altogether.
Disadvantages of Painting Your Gutters:
- Labor & Maintenance – It goes without saying that painting your gutters will be a labor-intensive task, but this becomes increasingly more arduous the taller your home is. In addition to climbing ladders and working on roofs, this task is more tricky and potentially dangerous if your home has multiple stories or steep angles. If the paint needs to be touched up or repainted at any point, this issue will come up again. On the maintenance side, a smooth pre-painted surface will better eliminate the tiger striping that can occur when rainwater droplets create small tracks of dirt, debris, and mold. However, heavy dried paint brushstrokes can trap dust and debris and create small stripes easier, creating more maintenance for homeowners to remove them.
- Longevity of Paint – Depending on the type and quality of the paint used, proper surface prep, and the amount of extreme weather that your home experiences, the paint on your gutters can experience peeling and chipping. You may find that the painted finish does not offer the level of durability that you were expecting. If the paint does flake off and enter your gutter system, it can contribute to clogs, impeded water flows, and other issues that arise when gutters are not diverting rain properly.
- Overall Costs Involved – For the best potential long-term results from your painted gutters, you will need to purchase high-quality outdoor paint. Next, add the costs of paint brushes and other supplies such as ladders and drop cloths. If you decide to hire professional painters, that is another cost that can drive up the project budget. You may find that the new gutter paint color doesn’t work for the design of your home as you intended and a repaint is in order. All these costs can unfortunately add up and present a stressful budget-crunch for the average homeowner. In some cases, replacing your current gutter system with new pre-painted gutters in your preferred shade can be cheaper than your overall painting costs!
Ultimately, the choice is yours! Make sure that your gutters are clean and prepared before any painting takes place, and always use outdoor paint. As a homeowner looking to get the most for your money in the greater local areas of Birmingham, AL, Dalton, GA, as well as Chattanooga, Cleveland, and Knoxville, TN, contact us to have a Drain Right expert provide an estimate for a pre-painted system that suits your home today!